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On February 18, President Donald Trump granted presidential pardons or clemency to 11 people, ranging from former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to financial criminal Michael Milken (dubbed “The Junk Bond King”) to former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik (a long-time ally of Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani). Trump has drawn some praise from the left for pardoning two non-violent drug offenders, Crystal Munoz and Tynice Nichole Hall, but he reserved most his pardons for wealthy white males convicted of white-collar crimes. Sarah Chayes, author of the book Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens National Security, analyzes Trump’s recent pardon/clemency spree in an article for The Atlantic — and explains why the pardon of Blagojevich and others reminds her of the type of corruption she has studied in some developing countries.

“Donald Trump’s decision this week to pardon several Americans convicted of fraud or corruption has garnered condemnation from many in the political establishment,” Chayes explains. “The pardons were shocking to some, but to me, they were eerily familiar — straight out of the kleptocratic playbook I’ve experienced and studied in a dozen other countries.

Chayes cites Afghanistan as one of the “kleptocracies” she has studied. A “palace aide” in that country, Chayes recalls, was arrested for “extorting a bribe,” but the charge was dropped after Afghan President Hamid Karzai “made a call.”

“Corruption, I realized with a start, is not simply a matter of individual greed,” Chayes observes. “It is more like a sophisticated operating system, employed by networks whose objective is to maximize their members’ riches. And a bargain holds that system together: money and favors flow upward — from aides to presidents, for instance — and downward in return.”

The timing of Trump’s 11 pardons, according to Chayes, is especially troubling.

“Trump’s clemency came not at the end of his time in office, as is sometimes the case with such favors bestowed on cronies and swindlers, but well before that — indeed, ahead of an election in which he is running,” Chayes warns. “The gesture was not a guilty half-secret, but a promise. It was meant to show that the guarantee of impunity for choice members of America’s corrupt networks is an ongoing principle.”

Irving Kristol, a New York intellectual and youthful communist who became a guru of the American right, once defined a neoconservative as “a liberal who has been mugged by reality.” Thanks to Donald Trump, we have a new definition of a criminal justice reformer: a rich person who is shocked to see his felonious friends punished as though they were poor.

Sorting out the motives behind the president’s sudden slew of clemency actions for people he knows and likes is not terribly difficult. Trump is a monumental sleazeball who is comfortable with other sleazeballs, provided they are people of means and fame. It also helps if they are willing to play the role of toady because Trump likes to see people grovel before him.

Rod Blagojevich gained his favor during their time together on Trump’s reality TV show, The Celebrity Apprentice. In dismissing him from the competition, Trump said, “Governor, I have great respect for you. I have great respect for your tenacity, for the fact that you just don’t give up.” Afterward, he made a point of saying how badly he felt for the guy who tried to sell a Senate seat.

In commuting Blagojevich’s 14-year prison sentence, of which he has served nearly eight years, Trump lamented the heartless severity of the criminal justice system. “You have drug dealers that get not even 30 days, and they’ve killed 25 people,” claimed the president, with his usual habit of making stuff up. “They put him in jail for 18 years, and he has many years left. And I think it’s very unfair.”

What Trump didn’t mention is that the disgraced Illinois governor got off easy. After his 2011 conviction, prosecutors and the presiding judge agreed that the federal sentencing guidelines for his crimes, which mandated 360 months to life, were excessive. Judge James Zagel said a more reasonable range was 188 months to 235 months. He then imposed an even lighter sentence, 168 months.

It’s safe to assume that Blagojevich strove to ingratiate himself with Trump during their TV time. If that weren’t enough, his wife, Patti, went on Fox News repeatedly to praise Trump and plead for help, while heaping blame on Barack Obama and James Comey. She knew Trump’s triggers.

Blagojevich was in appropriate company Tuesday. Trump also pardoned former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who pleaded guilty to eight felonies, including tax fraud, got off with a four-year sentence instead of the 30 years he could have received, and was released after serving three years.

The dirty cop, who served under Trump henchman Rudy Giuliani, responded to Trump’s decision with a maudlin lament: “Going to prison is like dying with your eyes open. Its aftermath of collateral consequences and the permanent loss of many of your civil and constitutional rights are personally devastating.”

It’s enough to break your heart. But the savage cruelty of incarceration never occurred to him when he was supervising a department that arrests hundreds of thousands of people every year so they can be prosecuted and imprisoned.

Trump also announced pardons for Michael Milken, a crooked Wall Street billionaire who did time for securities fraud, and former San Francisco 49ers owner Edward DeBartolo Jr., convicted of failing to report a felony in a gambling industry scandal. The president has a remarkable capacity for mercy when it comes to people blessed with wealth or power who, like him, hold the law in contempt.

This is the same guy who in 1989 took out an ad in The New York Times demanding the restoration of the death penalty in New York and suggesting it would be appropriate for the Central Park Five. Never mind that rape was not a capital crime when the state had the death penalty. Never mind that the five, after serving time, were exonerated of the infamous attack.

Trump lusted for the harshest penalty, and he didn’t agonize over whether it might be applied to the innocent. But then, the wrongly convicted boys, who ranged in age from 14 to 16, weren’t wealthy, powerful, well connected, white or in a position to kiss Trump’s feet.

Another rich, arrogant New Yorker, hotel magnate Leona Helmsley, who went to prison, was quoted by her housekeeper as saying, “We don’t pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes.” Under Trump, the little people pay the full price for their crimes, and the big people get a discount.

Steve Chapman blogs at http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chapman. Follow him on Twitter @SteveChapman13 or at https://www.facebook.com/stevechapman13. To find out more about Steve Chapman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

On December 3, 2004, President Bush nominated Bernard Kerik to head the Department of Homeland Security, reportedly after Giuliani had repeatedly made a “personal pitch to the White House” on Kerik’s behalf. Giuliani had appointed Kerik New York City Police Commissioner in 2000 — even after Giuliani was reportedly briefed on Kerik’s ties to what the Times described as a company “suspected of links to organized crime” — and the two were reportedly “literally inseparable on 9/11 and in the months that followed.”

On December 10, 2004, Kerik withdrew his nomination. Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson subsequently began investigating Kerik for corruption, resulting in Kerik’s 2007 indictment on 16 counts. In 2009, Kerik pleaded guilty to eight felonies, including two counts of tax fraud, one count of making a false statement on a loan application, and five counts of making false statements to the government. The last charges “stemmed from statements Mr. Kerik made to the White House during the vetting process after the Bush administration nominated him to lead the Department of Homeland Security.” In 2010, Kerik was sentenced to four years in prison.

Kerik has been a regular on Fox News in the Trump era, appearing on weekday Fox programming at least 39 times since the beginning of 2018 according to Media Matters’ internal database. This does not include weekend appearances, such as when he’s appeared on Jeanine Pirro’s show on Saturday evenings.

The day before Trump announced the pardon, Kerik appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight to attack New York’s cash bail reform, arguing that the state needs to be significantly tougher on criminals. Carlson simply introduced him as a former New York City police commissioner, before Kerik complained about New York’s bail reform law.

Fox News has been directly responsible for a number of pardons given by Trump, most notably for war crimes. The network is also linked to the commutation of former Illinois governor and Celebrity Apprentice contestant Rod Blagojevich‘s sentence for bribery and political corruption.

The White House statement announcing clemency for Kerik specifically credited Fox News personalities Geraldo Rivera and Andrew Napolitano in a list of people supporting the decision.

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